French police raided government offices today as part of an investigation into manslaughter charges linked to the deadly mad cow disease, judicial sources said.
The charges have been brought against officials by the families of victims of the fatal human equivalent of BSE, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD).
Two people have died of vCJD in France and a third is suspected of suffering from the illness, which scientists have linked to eating contaminated beef.
Judicial sources said prosecutors, accompanied by the police, removed documents from the agriculture, health and finance ministries.
Prosecutors are investigating the official handling of the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) or mad cow disease crisis during the late 1980s and 1990s after families of victims filed manslaughter charges against persons unknown in December.
The Paris prosecutor's office said at the time it was considering bringing charges.
The families want formal charges brought against British and European officials for allowing Britain to export suspect animal feed - which scientists have linked to BSE - after banning it at home in 1989.
They also want charges brought against French officials for not taking action to stop it.
The families charge EU officials did nothing to stop the exports of feed from Britain as they did not want to delay the 1992 opening of European borders in their drive for a single market, and that France went along with this in order to protect its own meat industry.
The lawsuits deal with the death of a 27-year-old man in 1996, a women, 36, who died last February and a 19-year-old man in the terminal stages of suspected vCJD.
The latest scare broke out in October when three French supermarket chains removed beef from their shelves over fears it might have come from herds where a contaminated cow was found.
Reuters